PAVIA. Federico Mondelci is one of the great protagonists of this new edition of Cortili in Musica. On Wednesday evening the internationally renowned saxophonist and composer will play at Palazzo Malaspina (piazza Luigi Guicciardi in Pavia), at 9.15pm. With him, to face a program as fascinating as it is demanding, the Soloists of Pavia in quintet (ticket 15 euros, concessions under 26 10, presale on Vivaticket).
Sax Quintessence, this is the name of the evening, ranges from Rachmaninov to Nyman, from Ellington to Bernstein via Gershwin. A choice that reveals a lot about Mondelci’s passions, a musician like few others open to the contemporary. On the other hand, his repertoire does not only include historical pages but is particularly oriented towards contemporary music and Mondelci places his name alongside the names of the great authors of the twentieth century (Nono, Kancheli, Glass, Donatoni, Sciarrino, Scelsi, Gentilucci, Graham Fitkin, Nyman, Nicola Piovani and other composers of the new generation).
«We have chosen for our concert in Pavia – begins the maestro – a program that is not easy: it will put us to the test but it will also be fun».
For her, music is also and above all contamination: in fact, she is not afraid to propose, alongside songs by the greats of classical music, songs by Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles…
«It’s like this, in the sense that there is now also an aristocracy of popular music and with it songs that have become iconic. Composers like Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles have entered the Olympus of the greats, they are new classics, to whom tributes are rightly dedicated.”
You have an extraordinary classical training and yet, over the years, you have also acquired a great jazz sensitivity…
«I don’t consider myself a jazz saxophonist in the strict sense, having said that I believe that jazz is an essential language for understanding the music of the twentieth century. You can’t associate with contemporary composers if you don’t have that kind of sensitivity.”
Training is essential to produce quality musicians: in Italian schools, musical education is something marginal.
«Music is marginal in our schools but there are also problems in our conservatories, where once an instrument was taught well, and now, instead, people receive training that is too generic».
The Cortili in Musica exhibition today stops in the Scala district. The exhibition that enhances the historic courtyards of the city of Pavia, organized by the I Solisti di Pavia Foundation, an instrumental body of the Banca del Monte di Lombardia Foundation, with the patronage of the Municipality of Pavia, this year is enriched with the “Cortili OFF” version , which includes two events in the suburbs.
At 9.15pm the Pavia Cello Academy Quartet, made up of students and former students of the Pavia Cello Academy, in the Scala district (piazzale Salvo D’Acquisto, Pavia), will perform music by de Swert, Warlock, Tansman, Wagner, Forino and Piatti.
Free entry while places last. —
